The Church, the Tribulation, and the Rapture

For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:9–11)

The most sobering truth in Scripture is that God will judge the wicked and sentence them to eternal hell (Matt. 3:12; 25:41, 46; John 3:36; 5:29; Acts 24:25; Rom. 2:5, 8; 2 Thess. 1:9; Heb. 6:2; 2 Peter 2:9; 3:7; Rev. 14:9–11). On the other hand, the blessed truth for believers is that God has not destined us for wrath (cf. 1:10; John 3:18, 36; 5:24; Rom. 5:1, 9; 8:1, 33–34). Like their nature, established in the past at salvation, and their present pattern of obedience, day people's future destiny sets them apart from night people. Believers will not experience the wrath God will pour out on unbelievers on the Day of the Lord, and for eternity in hell.

The word destined expresses the inexorable outworking of God's sovereign plan for believers' salvation. In Matthew 25:34 Jesus promised that believers will “inherit the kingdom prepared for [them] from the foundation of the world.” To the Ephesians Paul wrote, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4), while in 2 Timothy 1:9 he added, “[God] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”

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